The Stories of Scary People
by Virgins-and-Surgeons
Summary: Ichigo has exchanged his freedom for Orihime's. Now a prisoner in Las Noches, he's under the watch of a Sexta inclined to get some vindication and some sick kicks of his own. It's not love, nowhere near. Just a different, possessive flavor of hate.


He wonders if the trade was worth it, sometimes.

There's a cold white cell in a cold white castle in a cold white world, and inside it, a prisoner sits and waits for nothing. His brown eyes are dull with hopelessness, he can't remember the last time he laughed. He's starving, and the hunger pains are so agonizing that now he sits against the white wall listlessly, head lolling on his shoulder, mouth opened slightly; the slightest movement could potentially cause another rolling wave of hunger pangs, and he doesn't want to spend hours in the fetal position waiting for the cramps to stop. He hasn't had a drink of water in what feels like years, though time has been all but obliterated to his senses. His mouth is dry and his lips are chapped and cracked with the dry atmosphere.

Ichigo Kurosaki is a prisoner, and a sacrificial lamb of sorts.

His thoughts are far from coherent; they're barely there at all anymore. Not true thoughts, anyway; more like a stream of random images and memories and thoughts and broken words. Memories of what laughter sounds like, memories that are quickly fading. He can't remember what human laughter sounds like. He can only recall the shrieks of madness, of hollows, laughter that is not happy. He tries, desperately, to remember what a human voice sounds like.

"Dog..." He murmurs, a random word just to hear a human voice. It's rasping and choked and the effort is scratchy and unpleasant. His eyes widen, slide halfway closed, open a little wider again. Not even his hollow feels alive anymore.

Footsteps, a door. Ichigo can barely comprehend the motions of someone opening his door and walking in, standing in front of him. He won't even bother raising his head; he just doesn't have the energy anymore.

"Hey." The voice is vaguely familiar to him, but not enough to spring any particular faces to mind, and so he ignores it. "Hey!" It snaps again, and when he doesn't stir, a foot flattens against his chest and pins him down, while the intruder grabs his hair, greasy with neglect, and jerks his head up forcefully. "Don't ignore me when I'm fucking talking to you!" The man snaps, and Ichigo's eyes widen slightly.

"Grimmjow?" Ichigo asks, dryly, and when the foot moves and settles against his collarbone, he watches as Grimmjow hooks his fingers in his jaw hinges and forces his mouth open. Without care, Grimmjow dumps a glass of water (an _entire_ glass of water, mind you) down his throat and ignores the incredibly weak resistance as Ichigo grabs his wrist, tries to pry his hands away. As soon as Grimmjow's done, he lets go of Ichigo and takes a step back to watch the younger man cough and hack and gasp for air. Kurosaki continues to cough, on hands and knees, drooling a small amount of water as he coughs. After a moment, he becomes bored of this, apparently, and walked up to Ichigo, giving a hard kick to his ribs.

"Yup, it's me, bitch." He huffs, as Ichigo groans weakly, crumpled on the white floors. He still doesn't have the energy to fight appropriately, and this disappoints the Sexta quite a bit. He was hoping for fire and hatred, not...this. He doesn't like this. Ichigo's his rival, for God's sake; he doesn't want to call this pathetic creature his rival. Giving a small jerk as he begins to walk again, Grimmjow stuffs his hands in his pockets, unconsciously imitating an Ulquiorra tic, and stares down at Ichigo. "So, I heard the news. You for Inoue? What a goddamn stupid idea. Thought you were smarter than that, you dumb shit." He pulls his hands out of his pockets and kneels down, grabbing Ichigo by the front of the shirt and rolling him on his back, before jerking him up to a face-to-face level. Ichigo's head hangs limply, as does the rest of him. Pathetic. "Yo, shinigami bitch; wake up. What, are you fucking braindead or something?" He shakes, almost vigorously, before remembering something. Glancing over his shoulder, at the doorway, he gives a slight wave at the open door. "Yeah, bring it in. Hurry the fuck up, I don't want this slut dying on me."

Ichigo's eyes flutter, and he murmurs between his teeth, "Don't call me a slut, you pussy."

To his dismay, Grimmjow doesn't get angry. At least, not yet. He grins, and laughs sharply, a loud barking noise that makes Ichigo almost jump (if he had the energy to do so). "Ha! Still got some life in you, huh? Good. Need something to beat out of ya later." And now he becomes angry, gritting his teeth, baring them, shaking Ichigo like a soaked old alley cat. "Think you're pretty fucking smart, eh? Well, think again, Kurosaki; moxie ain't gonna get you nothing in Hueco Mundo except some deep fucking sword wounds." With every shake, Ichigo's body jerks painfully, and his body is wracked with agony. After a moment of nonresponsiveness on Ichigo's part, Grimmjow huffs an insult under his breath and drops Ichigo, gesturing what Ichigo realizes is a food cart to come inside further. He tries to sit up, but Grimmjow shoves him back to the floor and pins him down, sitting on his chest to keep him from getting up and skittering away.

"Get off of me!" Ichigo manages to growl, though Grimmjow's entire weight on his chest is making it hard to breathe, and Grimmjow laughs while grabbing a fistful of his hair, dragging him to crane his neck at a horribly painful angle. Then, what feels like a fistful of something is shoved in his mouth, and it tastes delicious, even though his jaw is hurting now. He pulls his fingers out of Ichigo's mouth and, after a moment where Ichigo doesn't chew, Grimmjow groans under his breath and then jerks his mouth open and closed to make him chew.

"I will as soon as you fucking eat. If ya don't, then I'll just tell Ulquiorra to get that IV thing started." The threat isn't false, and Ichigo manages to swallow the mouthful. Right after that comes another mouthful, and then another, and another; they get into a pattern of Grimmjow's force-feeding. When there's nothing left on the tray, and Grimmjow gets off of him and stands back, admiring a job well-done, Ichigo rolls over and promptly vomits.

"Fuck!" He hears Jeagerjaquez's voice snap behind him, before muttering something about 'fucking Ulquiorra being right about taking it slow'. Then, Grimmjow walks over and grabs a fistful of hair, laughing under his breath as he speaks.

"You little bitch, you did that on purpose didn'cha? Well, I don't deal with that shit well, you got that?" He then makes sure to grind Ichigo's face into the mess just for the pure sadistic joy of it. He does wonder if he should make him eat it again, but decides against it, mainly because he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. So he drops Ichigo, reconsiders, picks him up by the back of his shirt and then drags him over to the adjoining bathroom. "Get it? _No no **no**_." Grimmjow chides, adding some extra nastiness on that last word, as if Ichigo were a naughty dog, and he laughs raucously as he turns the shower on full-blast, and tosses Ichigo in the bathtub currently filling up with icy water. Ichigo yelps in shock, flounders in the cold water and tries to escape the tub. Grimmjow grabs him by the back of the neck and shoves him under the water, head and all, and holds him there for about ten or so seconds, then dragging him up for air.

"You awake?" He growls in Ichigo's face, though the snarl has a distinct edge of a barely-concealed grin, and when his prey does nothing but gasp for air and once again try to escape, he submerges him under the water again, this time, for twenty seconds. Or was it thirty? Hell, maybe he's been under there a minute. He drags Ichigo up again, reaches into the tub and pulls out the stopper, and once the water drains out, leaves Ichigo to sit in the still-running shower. Clapping his hands twice, his eyes focused on the doorway to the room-slash-cell Ichigo's been stuck in for only god knows how long, Grimmjow then catches a bundle of what looks like clothes, and drops them on the counter.

"When you're done wallowing, get your ass in these new clothes; Aizen's orders. Apparently, he thinks you're worth something. Me, I think you're a bitch." He informs, grinning at the end and turning to walk, almost strut towards the door and the obedient Numero sent to assist him, laughing. He looms in the doorway a moment longer, grinning maniacally, and booms, "Welcome to fucking Las Noches." Then he's gone, and Ichigo, dazed, in his own special sort of stupor, hears the outside door shut. His mind reels; he wonders about what's in store for him, but not for too long, because soon he drags himself out of the tub, with incredible difficulty, and feeling almost hypothermic, grabs under the sink for the towels there; starchy, stiff, prickly. It doesn't matter to him; he rolls himself up in as many of them as he can find, trying to warm himself up again. Soon though, when he's cocooned in towels and laying on the bathroom floor rug, surrounded by all the white noise of a running shower, he gets so tired. So tired, in fact, that the pain in his stomach isn't even enough to keep him awake, and he falls asleep on the bathroom floor.


End file.
